Insurance, x-rays and LOU

[charlotte0916]

Hi all,
I’ve had a look around (extensively!) at the threads on insurance etc. And was hoping to pick the collective brains on the issue.

I’m currently in the process of buying/vetting a lovely 5yr old and trying to weigh up x-rays or not.

As far as I understand it I would need to X-ray to insure her for her value and LOU (over £10k) but could undervalue her by 25% (insure are happy with that) and not have the x-rays and still have LOU. Or forgo LOU altogether.

My questions are:
1) loss of use, worth it or not?
2) x-rays worth it or not?
I’ve not been in this territory before with such a nice (expensive!!) horse so am trying to learn rapidly

 

[Melody Grey]

LOU can be difficult to claim nowadays I think- my only experience of this is so many years ago, it’s probably no longer relevant! I know there are numerous past threads on here detailing people’s woes in trying to claim- might be worth searching. Maybe that will
Inform your opinion on whether it’s worth it.

I’m surprised an insurance company is happy with you deliberately under valuing the horse, but then I guess if it limits what you could claim, it’s only you losing out?

 

[TheMule]

I think insurance is a very personal choice, I insure my more precious ones for vets fee cover but I wouldn’t bother for LOU/ high value payout on death because I'm happy to replace with something young and cheaper.
At her purchase value I would probably x-ray though, not for insurance purposes but for my own peace of mind

 

[chaps89]

My mum has just had LOU pay out from NFU on a horse she bought 15 months ago. She went LOU for the first year of owning him whilst she got to know him and incase anything happened as he was, to us, an expensive horse, the plan had been to remove it after that if he seemed a sound/tough type and all was going well.
She's very glad she did - after hammering through all her vet fee cover and some savings, had there been no LOU there wouldn't have been funds for another horse.
She has of course been exceptionally unlucky.
It all comes down to personal choice, LOU is alot easier to claim for than mortality so it depends on how you'd feel and what you could afford if horse was written off.

I'm not sure I would x-ray out of choice though personally if horse fit, in full to, sound and passed a vetting. Only because it's hard to tell what's of clinical significance if the horse is sound.

 

[CPayne]

I can’t help on the LOU but will add my thoughts on x-rays, having recently been through vetting potential purchases.
I decided to have x-rays. The first horse that I recently had vetted failed on the x-rays having passed the 5 stage without comment. The second horse passed both and is now mine. Importantly, both horses were not working at the level that I would want them to do in the future, which I’m guessing is the same as you given that the horse is only 5 years old. Therefore I felt that ensuring that there was nothing obviously wrong on x-rays was important as the work and pressures would only be increasing. In a 5 year old there really shouldn’t be much to see on x-ray but it could pick things up that would be catastrophic, for example early onset arthritis. I also appreciate that I now have baseline x-rays for the future should he have any issues.
The first horse I would have bought if I hadn’t had x-rays. There was nothing catastrophic on the x-rays but a lot of little things that were wrong, too many for a young horse, and my vet was of the opinion that in 6 months time I would be calling her because we weren’t making any more progress or he was lame and one of these little things would have turned in to, or caused, a big problem.
Good luck whatever you decide.

 

[Melody Grey]

To add to @CPayne comment on ‘picking up anything catastrophic’- x-ray may pick up something like a previous fracture.

I nearly bought an OTTB recently where this hadn’t been declared. I didn’t find by x-rays, instead digging up history but it was career ending for that horse. An x- ray would have shown it far easier and faster than my research!

I know it’s rare, but stranger things have gone undeclared, especially in more expensive horses.

 

[Goldenstar]

I think there’s a degree of sense in taking LOU for the first year or two all the complete disasters I bought went wrong quickly .

 

[Jango]

I got a loss of use claim paid out a few years ago, the key point in my experience is to pick the 'toughest' thing on a horse physically you want to do for the vetting and insurance paper work. E.g if you want to hack, low level dressage and the odd BE90 I would insist the vet puts eventing up to 90. If you put hacking too, the horse has an injury which means it can't jump but can still light hack then they won't pay out. I did have to get a second insurance vet opinion to get the payout, but it wasn't a difficult process. I would always get LOU for the first 2 years for a horse over 5k. But I've had awful luck with lameness issues!

 

[Birker2020]

Hi all,
I’ve had a look around (extensively!) at the threads on insurance etc. And was hoping to pick the collective brains on the issue.

I’m currently in the process of buying/vetting a lovely 5yr old and trying to weigh up x-rays or not.

As far as I understand it I would need to X-ray to insure her for her value and LOU (over £10k) but could undervalue her by 25% (insure are happy with that) and not have the x-rays and still have LOU. Or forgo LOU altogether.

My questions are:
1) loss of use, worth it or not?
2) x-rays worth it or not?
I’ve not been in this territory before with such a nice (expensive!!) horse so am trying to learn rapidly

After reading this article and having a horse affected by this malformation I would definitely go with xrays of the neck. https://thehorsesback.com/c6-c7-malformation/

 

[ihatework]

It’s really tricky.

I, personally would not X-ray if the clinical examination on 5 stage is really good. It’s rare to have squeaky clean xrays and once you have them the insurers will interpret every last question mark and slap on exclusions. Obviously if your vet has a clinical niggle then do them.

I believe there is value in LOU for the first year at least and if you can get LOU cover without xrays that is the way I’d go. Generally with a 5yo, you will get a gut feel once the training really starts if you might have an issue. If you get that feeling keep the LOU cover up ?

 

[Birker2020]

Ihatework has got a good point to be fair. The insurance company will interpret everything on xrays. You could xray ten horses and find half have arthritic changes but only one actually suffers from arthritis. But I suppose a potential problem in time could prove to be costly to an insurer. The LOU idea is good too, I've never thought of that before.

 

[charlotte0916]

Thank you all for the replies, it’s been super helpful! My current thinking is no x-rays but keep loss of use for the first year or so while she comes into full work. She has been in full work 6 days a week since going onto schooling/sales livery 7 weeks ago and appears to just be getting better. Between that and knowing her full history from birth - she’s had one owner from 2yrs and the sales livery have had 4 other half siblings who have all been fab - I’m hoping there won’t be too many surprises after a thorough vetting! And I’ll have the LOU as a back up in case ?

 

[VRIN]

Have you thought about getting previous vet records too. This will highlight any existing problem that may have occurred.